


Never the Same, Always Right

by Merfilly



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Ending, Developing Relationship, Episode: s09e13 Ripple Effect, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-11
Updated: 2010-11-11
Packaged: 2017-10-13 04:23:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/132791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Janet of "Ripple Effect" had less reason to go home in this take on the ending, and a pressing one for staying. Also, Teal'c plays wise man.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never the Same, Always Right

Janet Fraiser was a woman of resolve and clear-headed thinking. In her own world, Samantha Carter was a brilliant woman who had long since stopped fighting the attraction between herself and Martouf. Never mind the fact that Janet had been happy for them, it had hurt, given how often Janet had faced her own attractions to Sam.

Then she fell into the rabbit hole, and came up breathing on a world where "she" had died, Martouf was gone, and Samantha Carter had clearly known strong feelings for the dead Janet. Doctor Fraiser knew it was possibly the most selfish thing she had ever done, and that there was no guarantee of ever having here what she had wanted there, but it was a slim chance for happiness that both of them needed.

Landry, despite having a competent doctor in the form of Dr. Lam, was not going to say 'no' to having a field-certified combat medic who was accustomed to going with the team. There had been numerous occasions when he had thought the deceased Janet Fraiser should have had a combat trained assistant for the team's missions as it was.

All that remained was the adjusting, and Landry did help there by assigning her to the other teams, not SG-1, at first, so that interaction was on base, not off-world. That would let all of them grow accustomed to the face of their lost comrade, coupled with the faint changes in behavior that could be noted.

`~`~`~`~`

Samantha Carter thought she had fully let go her grieving for what had never come to pass. Then Janet came back, in the form of a dimensional visitor. Sam had tried, very hard, to keep a professional upper-lip to the fact that this Janet had decided not to return to her home dimension. Sam could cope with that. They were both professionals. They were both women of careers and dedication.

It didn't stop Sam from wondering, from half-hoping, and then feeling guilt. She had never been brave enough to push through and admit to Janet what she felt, keeping it at a simmer of repressed desire. Yet now, she thought of missed opportunities, felt her heart in her throat whenever Janet walked through the wormhole with a team, and asked herself 'why' about the doctor's motives for staying. Landry had told her that Fraiser's reasons had been that their world, with the Ori threat, seemed more in need than her own, because of differences in personnel. She was confident that Martouf and others would handle the threat of their own world adequately without her.

Sam wanted to believe there was more. Which was how she found herself in Teal'c's private room, sharing in his meditation techniques to center and think through her convoluted position.

"Samantha Carter, you are ill at ease tonight," Teal'c casually commented, the third time she let out a harried breath and fidgeted.

"I...I'm sorry. I shouldn't have come and intruded on your quiet time when I am frazzled and don't know what to say or think and I just wish..."

"You are, as Colonel Mitchell would point out, rambling," Teal'c told her. He opened his eyes in time to see Sam's face explode in her embarrassed smile, ducking her head down, and that caused his lips to quirk in a mark of warmth to see he had begun the process of helping her get it out of her system.

"I have issues. Unresolved ones."

"This pertains to Doctor Fraiser then."

Sam gawked at him. He really was proof of the metaphor about still waters, most days. "How do you do that?"

"Many of us have remaining issues. Daniel has taken her to the movies once, to work through his. I have played a game of … racquetball? with her to gauge my own emotional awareness of her. She is most like our own, yet with a harder edge that leaves me curious and...intrigued."

The flare of dark emotions, that little green monster, was so sudden and intense that Sam jerked back to a ramrod-straight position, almost glaring at her friend.

Then Teal'c met her eyes, and she knew he had done it on purpose, that he knew what lay beneath all her knots and worries.

"You're sneaky!" She launched herself across the small distance and hugged him, feeling his solid chest absorb the impact before he wrapped his arms around her and granted her the anchor she needed to fight her fears.

"Do not let the past repeat itself, Samantha Carter. The present may have varied, but there is still opportunity to embrace."

"I'm nominating you for Guru-of-the-year in the base paper, next issue," Sam teased him, but she was slow to slip away, letting his presence do what meditation had not.

`~`~`~`~`

"I loved her."

The words had come from a throat that had been tight, and it made Janet's head snap up from the microscope she had been using. The door was closed, and Sam stood there, looking nervous and pale. The words resonated, though, striking Janet in ways that were impossible to fully contain, as her own throat closed off, and she moved from behind the counter to come closer to the officer in front of it.

"I never knew if she did or not," Janet said softly. "Every time I thought maybe, she backed off. Then...she stopped fighting the idea of what was Jolinar and what was her."

Sam swallowed hard, remembering that. Remembering the debate within herself reminded her of killing Martouf. It reminded her of the other men that had died when she was certain it was love. She thought about Pete, and how she had been unable to follow through with the wedding. She then remembered the day of Janet's death, too clearly, and bit at her lower lip.

"My relationships..."

"...don't end well," Janet said, knowingly.

Sam laughed, bitter and hard. "One way to put it." She then reached out, hand cupping along Janet's jawline for that moment to reassure herself this was real. "You're not her. I'm not that Sam."

"We can never be the one the other remembers," Janet agreed. "But I stayed...for hope."

Sam's heart raced, hearing confirmation of her suspicions. "Then...how..."

Janet stepped forward, boldly, confidently, and kissed Sam's lips, chastely. "One step at a time, Sam. And if it doesn't work...at least we can both say we didn't pass it by," she told the other woman quietly.

Sam stepped across the rest of the distance, little as it was, and wrapped her arms around Janet. "It's two at a time...one for you, one for me," she told the woman that evoked memories while promising new beginnings.

"Then we'll get there, together," Janet promised, holding onto Sam as fiercely as she was being held.

This opportunity would not go unanswered.


End file.
